"Madam," said Captain Wilkins, who spoke the dialect in use in Oude,
"Major Warrener, the British officer in command, bids me tell you that
this castle, with you and all that it contains, are in his power, and that
he might give it to the flames and carry you off as hostage. But he will
not do this. The Rajah of Bithri is a brave man, but he is wrong to fight
against fate. The English Raj will prevail again, and all who have
rebelled will be punished. We treat him as a brave but mistaken enemy; and
as we have spared his castle and his family, so we hope that he in turn
will behave kindly to any Englishman or woman who may fall into his hands
or may ask his aid. Lastly, let no one leave this castle till daybreak,
for whoever does so we will slay without mercy."

Then, turning round again, Warrener and his companions returned to the
courtyard. The moment the castle was entered and opposition quelled, half
the troops had run back for the horses, and in twenty minutes from the
arrival of the bullock-carts at the gateway of Bithri the last of its
captors filed out from its walls and trotted off into the darkness. Day
broke before any of the inhabitants of Bithri dared issue from its walls.
Then a horseman took the news on to the camp. The artillery, increased now
to thirty-six guns, had already opened upon the village ere he reached the
great tent on the plain. The rajah could not credit the intelligence that
the enemy had escaped, that his castle had been attacked and carried, and
the white prisoners released; but his surprise and fury were overpowered
by the delight he felt at the news that his women and children were safe
and his ancestral dwelling uninjured. "The English are a great people," he
said, stroking his beard; then, issuing from his tent, he told the news.
Like wildfire it ran through the camp, and as none of the thousands
gathered there had his feelings of gratitude and relief to soften their
anger and disappointment, the fury of the multitude was unbounded.